6 NHL Teams That Are Screwed for the Forseeable Future

Ah, the final two weeks of the NHL regular season. This is the wonderfully odd time of year when fans can have almost entirely different experiences. 

You’ve got top dogs clinched and trying to strike the correct balance between fighting for top seeding and getting enough rest before the playoffs. You've got your wild-card teams playing their hearts out night after night. You've got the bottom of the barrel thinking about tanking. 

Then, there are the teams that are just totally screwed. These are the clubs that have had objectively disappointing seasons or seem directionless.

Before we gear up for the excitement of the playoffs, let's get a vibe check on the teams left behind this season.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that the Bruins are entering some well-earned struggle years. They are in last place in the East in April for the first time since 1997, and you can look at that in two ways. 

If you're a pessimist, it stinks and maybe Don Sweeney didn't have to keep trading so many first-round picks at the deadline for the past 10 years.

If you're an optimist, it's impressive the Bruins have been such a consistently above-average hockey team for almost 30 years. 

Regardless, we can all agree the team has not been a fun watch from basically opening night this season. Sweeney fired Jim Montgomery, and things slowly but surely got worse. Then, the front office finally had no choice but to sell at the deadline and sent captain Brad Marchand to greener pastures in Florida. 

It's going to be an adjustment for Bruins fans who have been used to watching a competitive team for years, but something needed to give as the 2011 core faded away and cap issues made it impossible to meaningfully improve the team. 

Are the Bruins “screwed” for at least a season or two as they recalibrate? Yes. But there was some freedom in Sweeney finally throwing in the trade deadline buying towel and admitting it was time for a retool.

Can anyone remember the last time the Sabres weren't screwed? Here’s a fun fact: The last time they made the playoffs (2010-2011), Alex Ovechkin was 594 goals away from breaking the record. 

It's not even that Buffalo holds the NHL's longest playoff drought; it's that nothing the team ever does seems to move things in the right direction.

We thought the Jeff Skinner trade might change things years ago, but now he's playing far more affordable hockey for the Oilers. We thought goaltender Devon Levi might come in and change things, but we put too much pressure on a rookie. 

Jack Eichel, Sam Reinhart, Linus Ullmark...OK, you get it: Everyone who leaves Buffalo seems to get unscrewed immediately. It's not even fun to joke about the situation anymore, so what can Buffalo do to get unscrewed this offseason?

You start with some stability and get rid of the band-aids. Do your research and hire coaches at the NHL and developmental levels who align with a new culture and get prospects and roster players alike excited to be part of a new era.

The Sabres have had seven coaching changes and four GMs since their last playoff appearance, and none of them were able to inspire success. The team has mismanaged the cap and assets, spending around the cap floor in instances like last season when Buffalo was one point out of a playoff spot. 

The core right now is extremely young with budding potential. Until the Sabres can figure out how to support that—better supplemental players, more consistency with coaches, spending actual money—they will remain screwed. 

It was exciting when Barry Trotz took the rare leap from NHL coach to NHL GM. It was even more exciting when he decided to go all-in to make the Predators roster competitive while the franchise was at a crossroads.

Unfortunately, it looks like it was the wrong move, as they are ending another season at the bottom of the West despite huge offseason signings like Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Marchessault and Brady Skjei.

What gives?

It feels like a combination of the chance you take when making three gigantic additions to a roster not knowing if they will mesh, the previous lack of direction from the franchise not healing with that attempted band-aid, and a bad season from the most important player on the team: Juuse Saros.

Was it a fluke season for Saros? Is there a system change that can improve the entire team's uncoordinated defensive efforts? At this point, the big rebuild the Predators always hoped to avoid is looking like the most logical option.

At least they can say they tried some big swings to work around it.

How many times can the Islanders see a similar story play out and do little to fix it?

At least GM Lou Lamoriello made a big move in the in-season sellers' market, trading Brock Nelson for defenseman Oliver Kylington, forward prospect Calum Ritchie, a conditional first-round pick in the 2026 draft and a conditional third-round pick in 2028.

But here they are again, either barely making or flat-out missing the playoffs, and you have to wonder if the Nelson sale means a more active offseason for the Islanders. We're not asking them to burn it all down, but some younger, faster scoring could go a long way. 

After giving fans a crumb of hope, it appears the Rangers are ending the season in the dumpster-fire fashion more representative of the current team.

Even when they were close to a wild-card spot—or in one—throughout the year, it was just defensive breakdown after defensive breakdown. 

The vibes were pretty terrible early on, with GM Chris Drury publicly warning his stars that everyone is for sale. Then he traded captain Jacob Trouba after not getting that done in the offseason, and it seemed to shake the defensive core and locker room in general. 

It was a tough year for most Rangers stars and the team as a whole, but Artemi Panarin has been on a tear recently, which could inspire some hope headed into the offseason.

Other than that, the Rangers have a projected salary-cap space of $9.6 million for next season with 18 active roster players under contract. K'Andre Miller, Zac Jones and Will Cuylle are among the restricted free agents to take care of.

Could Drury end up convincing Mika Zibanejad to trade his no-movement clause to clear up some cap space, or perhaps goal-scorer Chris Kreider could be on the move?

Either way, the Rangers shook the core, the perimeter and everything in between throughout the season and still look discombobulated. With little cap space, they have to hope the big names step up and return to form next season.

Penguins GM Kyle Dubas has said his goal is to retool this roster in a way that would make the team competitive again while Sidney Crosby is still in the league.

Considering the 37-year-old is still leading the team in points and showing no signs of slowing down, Dubas has an offseason or two to figure it out. And he was pretty slick utilizing the in-season sellers market to his advantage. 

Dubas sold for high value where appropriate and held on to Rickard Rakell, who still has some term left on his contract and could yield an even higher return as the cap rises this offseason. 

The Penguins' season was particularly bleak in the goaltending department, with early, sloppy goals allowed in far too many games. But it was at least a departure from the prior two seasons of just missing the playoffs by a hair.

Dubas has implemented his tactics now that we're a few seasons out from the failed Ron Hextall experiment, and we'll see if he can do it quick enough to bring the Penguins back to greatness while Crosby is still active.

Could an Erik Karlsson buyout be on the horizon? That would free up some room to accelerate a retool.

We'll see if a lightspeed rebuild pans out, but the franchise has obviously been in a tough position with hanging onto the Crosby, Kris Letang and Evgeni Malkin contracts.